Homeschooling and Tutoring

 

As I mentioned in a previous post I have three 5th grade girls that come to my house three days a week for tutoring. It is refreshing to get to revisit all the elementary material that I once was able to share with Grace. Our literature book this month is Treasure Island. I chose to use a very abridged children's version of the book to read aloud during class, a couple of chapters each day. I may regret this choice because to me the book is kind of disjointed in places. It moves very quickly but from what I have read on line the unabridged version is the same. Sometimes hard to follow. When we finish the book, which should be in a couple of weeks, I plan on creating a Treasure Island day. The girls will get to watch the Disney version of Treasure Island and compare it to the book. We will create a compass rose, pirate flags, treasure maps, dabble in some creative writing dealing with pirates, show how a compass works, pick a pirate name, and do an exploding treasure chest science demonstration. I love the elementary ages - you have so much flexibility with learning.

 

 

 

A couple of weeks ago Wal-Mart put on clearance just the right size table Grace needed in her room for art. Recently she has taken up painting which required lots of space for canvases, paint bottles, etc. This was the perfect fit.

 

Grace has a fascination with sugar skulls, so her first painting of course ran in that direction. She also likes to do make up sugar skulls as well. Grace currently spends a fair amount of her day drawing and painting after she finishes her school work. This is a weird year as far as homeschooling goes. Most, if not all of her work is being done independently or through another teacher. I really miss that one on one time with her. Hearing about what she is learning and discussing everything.

 

The "littles" as I refer to them have also had a big art week. Each week I try to do a special class and this week was art. We used the See the Light series - Marc Chagall inspired painting of Joseph and the his dreams from the Bible. So far they have completed the first two lessons. Hopefully next week we will finish the last two even though on Monday we have a field trip to the library.